8Pre, definitely.
I have two of 'em and a FIREPOD. The FIREPOD has been... temperamental, as has my M-Audio FW1814.
The FW1814 (which you don't care about, I'm guessing) has digital I/O ports that are switchable between S/PDIF and ADAT (coaxial or optical). Problem is, they go unstable unless it's the first device on the FireWire bus. They also go unstable if you have more than about two devices on the FireWire bus. The unit itself seems perfectly solid under those conditions, but the digital I/O won't lock to any outside sync and nothing else will lock to it, either.
The FIREPOD's S/PDIF ports became nonfunctional after a firmware update, so they replaced it. Also, the instrument pres in the FIREPOD seem to have a lot more hum at similar gain when compared with
my Behringer V-Amp Pro. I'm not sure why that could be, but the difference was pretty significant in my limited testing.
That said, the 8Pre isn't without its warts. One thing I don't like about the 8Pre is that the inputs are all on the back and the XLR and 1/4" are the Neutrik combo jacks. That makes it impossible to wire them to a snake that has combo jacks and switch back and forth without switching cables behind your rack.
If I were designing the 8Pre, I'd probably have built it with a hinge and ribbon cable at the midpoint of the bottom. In the normal configuration, it would be exactly as it is now. In the folded position, the jacks would be in the front in the rack space below the front panel. I'd personally use one of them in one configuration and one in the other if it had that feature. That said, it a relatively minor design flaw, solvable with a pair of rack rails, so it's not a particularly big deal. Hmm. I think I'll get me two sets of rails when I'm at Fry's today.
One other minor concern about the 8Pre is that its ADAT optical jacks have a built-in flip-down dust cover which is integral to the locking mechanism that holds the cables in place. I broke one my first night with them. It was probably simply defective from the factory, but I thought I should warn you to be careful to avoid torquing the plug when inserting it. Treat it like you're plugging a processor into a socket and not like a power strip into an outlet and you'll probably be fine.
If I were designing the 8Pre, I'd go back to the standard shove-in plug covers. I would
always choose robustness over "cute". If you want to be cute, fasten the plug covers to the unit permanently with a flexible plastic strap right beside the jack or something.
Some things the 8Pre does much better than the FIREPOD are:
- Separate phantom power switches for each channel.
- 10dB pad switch on every channel.
- Ability to daisy-chain two devices optically so your computer sees it as a single 16-channel interface. Much easier on your CPU load.
- Excellent drivers (at least on the Mac). While I still wish (from a long-term "if MOTU went bankrupt, would my device still work" perspective) that the 8Pre were FireWire AVC compatible like the FIREPOD, the CPU load from my pair of 8Pre interfaces is fantastically low. They really got their drivers right. I'm impressed.
- Ability to disable optical input, output, or both through software to conserve bus bandwidth.
- Ability to configure all critical settings through front-panel controls when used as a stand-alone ADAT preamp unit.
- Level meters in hardware. 'Nuff said.
- Power switch on the FRONT. What was Presonus THINKING!?!
And somehow, the 8Pre's hard plastic shell just feels more robust than the thin metal case of the FIREPOD, but if you rack mount it, I suppose it doesn't make any real difference.
